Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)

The Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS) conducts cutting-edge research, teaching/training, and networking on cooperative multilateralism in the Asia Pacific region. The Centre aims to contribute to international academic and public discourses on regional architecture and order in the Asia Pacific. It aspires to be an international knowledge hub for multilateral and regional cooperation.

The Centre objectives are:

To conduct scholarly and policy research on multilateral and regional issues

To facilitate policy dialogue and academic debate on regional cooperation and integration

To enhance the capacity of current and future leaders, officials, professionals, and students through executive and graduate education

To network and collaborate with other academic and research institutions

In meeting its objectives, the Centre works through the following scope of activities:

Annual conferences and workshops

Research Fellow programme

Curriculum development

Policy-relevant research outputs

The Centre’s research agenda includes international and global forms as well as expressions of cooperative multilateralism:

“This study will conduct a comprehensive analysis of the BRI and other cross-border connectivity initiatives in Asia (e.g., ASEAN and ASEAN-India). It will quantify the country-level economic and welfare benefits of various economic corridors that have been proposed by using a Computational General Equilibrium model. It will also conduct a perception survey of Asian opinion leaders on the BRI and other initiatives focusing mainly on the non-economic dimensions of the BRI including the downsides and risks associated with the BRI. The study will enable us to offer a balanced evidence- based as well as perception-based recommendations. This study will result in, at least, two journal articles.”

Theme: International Political Economy / International Politics and Security / Maritime Security / Regionalism and Multilateralism

“Global economic governance is in flux. The centralised global economic architecture established at Bretton Woods is decentralising for various reasons. An increase in the number of international economic institutions per se is neither good nor bad for the provision of global public goods. It depends on how and whether these institutions are working together or competing with each other. This study has two objectives:

(i) identify the benefits and costs of the decentralising international trade architecture; and

(ii) recommend policies to manage the process. Have the benefits of the decentralising trade architecture outweighed the costs and global economic governance actually improved with decentralisation? Or is it, otherwise? The study will also recommend policy actions to “multilateralise regionalism”.”

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

“In the bygone era when Asia dominated the world, Asian countries were also connected by the Silk Roads. After a disruption that lasted for a number of centuries, land-connectivity is making a comeback once again, for various economic and strategic reasons, and economic corridors are either proposed or being built across Asia. This study has three objectives: (i) discuss connectivity in Asia during the bygone era and the reasons for its decline; (ii) account for the revival of connectivity in the contemporary period; and (iii) stocktake the Chinese (Belt and Road Initiative) and Indian projects and strategies, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies, and make recommendations.”

Theme: International Political Economy / International Politics and Security /Maritime Security Regionalism and Multilateralism

“The rules-based centralised global economic architecture (GEA) worked well for a number of decades but has recently tend to become decentralised and fragmented with a large number of new regional and sub-regional institutions established in various regions of the world. The decentralisation process is expected to continue under the Trump Presidency as the US support for international economic institutions (IEIs) is expected to weaken while support for regional institutions will continue to remain strong thanks in part to economic dynamism in various parts of the world. This has posed a conundrum for the global order. The objectives of the research are:

First, study the evolution and take stock of the various IEIs and the resulting GEA. We will analyse the origin and evolution of the major IEIs from the Bretton Woods period until the present time and into the future. The research will focus on the monetary, financial, trade, and economic development architecture.

Second, examine the benefits and costs of the decentralising architecture and recommend ways to minimise the costs while maximising the benefits to improve global governance.

“This is a collaborative project with Dr Yasutaka Tominaga at the Waseda University. This project aims to examine the causes and consequences of terrorist labelling. Different governments around the world have different lists of designated terrorist groups, and this project seeks to explain this variation and explore the domestic and international determinants of terrorist labelling. We plan to build a comprehensive database on designated terrorist groups and the governments that label them. Using this database, we will investigate the foreign policy and domestic politics considerations that drive the labelling. This project has been awarded MOE AcRF Tier 1 grant for two years.”

[Update] Data collection and literature review for this project are ongoing.”

“How does trade liberalisation with shocks affect voting behaviour? Relying on the recent literature on trade politics (Yotam 2011; Jensen, Quinn, and Weymouth 2016), this research project aims to examine the effects of Chinese import competition on voting in the United States. Using data on localised economic shocks from trade and the outcome of presidential and general elections for the period from 1992–2016, the research investigates whether and to what extent congressional districts exposed to greater competition from China would punish incumbent party candidates. The theory is based on the following two hypotheses. First, the incumbent party’s share of the two-party vote in presidential and general elections tends to decline in areas in which voters experienced unemployment and wage reduction due to Chinese import penetration. Second, the anti-incumbent effect of rising imports from China, however, is conditioned by voters’ perception of representative responsiveness to protectionist demands.”

[Update] The preliminary findings were presented at the International Political Economic Society (IPES)’s Annual Meeting, University of Texas, US, November 2017; and will be presented at the European Political Science Association (EPSA)’s Annual Conference, Vienna, Austria, June 2018.”

Theme: General / Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy

“This is a research project in collaboration with Dr Han Il Chang at New York University, Abu Dhabi. In this paper we study the impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) on clientelistic exchanges. Relying on the literature on clientelism in developing countries, we maintain that politicians disproportionately direct private transfers to mobile phone users, who can easily share persuasive messages with their communication partners and provide cascading benefits. Analysing data from the fifth wave of the Afrobarometer survey, we find that mobile phone users are indeed more likely to be targeted. Their chances of being targeted, however, decrease as they reside in urban areas or as their feeling of being monitored rises. The data also reveal that mobile phone users are more likely to persuade others to vote for a certain politician upon receiving private transfers. Our findings imply that mobile phone users serve as pseudo-brokers in clientelistic politics in developing democracies.”

“Much previous research has identified ethnic diversity as one of the major factors explaining cross-national differences in economic growth and public policy outcomes. Diversity is negatively associated with various aspects of good governance, as it hinders the ability of a society to communicate on common goals and to sanction those who fail to cooperate. Then why are some countries more successful in overcoming the costs of ethnic division and providing more public goods than others? This paper will argue that the relationship between diversity and public good provisions depends on domestic political institutions that shape the incentives and abilities of representative policymakers to serve broad, national constituencies. Using data on public policy outcomes and party politics in 78 countries for the period 1980-2015, we will find that high levels of party system nationalisation significantly mitigate the negative effects of diversity on public goods provision.”

[Update: I am currently checking the robustness of the findings with alternative measures.]”

Co-Authored Project with Professor Byung-Won Woo at Oakland University: How do International Monetary Fund (IMF) programmes and conditions affect labor rights? Critics of the IMF contend that participation in an IMF program me is detrimental to workers’ rights as the IMF tries to impose pro-business labour policies via conditionality. In this paper, we argue that while the IMF might have tried to make IMF programmes more beneficial to workers, those efforts are too little to reverse the overall negative effects on labour rights in both short term and long term. Utilising a labor rights dataset and IMF labor-market conditionality dataset, we demonstrate that IMF programmes with stricter labour-market conditions have more detrimental effects on both de jure labor rights and de facto labor practices.

[Update] The paper was presented at the Political Economy of International Organizations (PEIO)’s Annual Meeting in January 2017 at the University of Bern. We are currently checking the robustness of our findings with additional data sources from the 2018 IMF Lending Arrangements & the CIRI Human Rights Dataset.”

“This paper will ask “Why were certain issues missing in international agreements?” Using the case study of Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC), I will show how two aspects of water resource management (WRM) cooperation, navigation and water quality, were excluded from the agreement. This can be explained by the states’ comparison between costs associated with issue inclusion and the costs stemming from no issue inclusion. Issue inclusion is an attempt to “bring a new issue into the discussion while, at the same time, leaving the current issues on the table”. I will contend that issue inclusion is more likely when the cost of policy adjustments is lower than the cost of no agreement. However, issue inclusion is less likely when the cost of policy adjustments exceeds that of no agreement. My study will contribute to the negotiation and WRM literatures and suggest lessons for policymakers in the area of WRM cooperation.”

“This is a collaborative project with Dr Yasutaka Tominaga at Waseda University. This study aims to test the causal mechanisms of how natural disasters affect the progress of armed conflict. We argue that a natural disaster reduces the value of future rents that militant members can obtain, and it also destructs the current flows of resources, thus diminishing resource supply to militant members. As a result, we hypothesize that natural disasters (especially those with rapid onsets) reduce the survival of rebel groups, particularly those that rely on stable revenue streams from resources. When a militant group has support from external actors, however, they are less vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters. We test our hypotheses using data on natural disasters, armed conflicts, and rebel funding, and the results support our hypotheses.

[Update] Preliminary data analysis has been completed. We are currently working on the first draft, which will be presented at the 2018 European Political Science Association in June.”

“This project aims to explore what affects the pace of natural resource extraction and production. Theoretically, natural resources, particularly oil, are highly lucrative, so countries richly endowed with natural resources may want to extract them as fast as possible. However, we have witnessed that some countries delay their oil projects or keep the oil in the ground. This paper argues how leaders discount the future affects their decision of natural resource production. Specifically, if leaders have their power secured and expect a longer time horizon, they may want to save for the future, so they will extract natural resources at a slower pace. The theory was tested using data on oil production and leaders’ time horizons, and a negative effect of leader time horizons on the oil production growth rate was found. This preliminary finding is consistent with the literature that leaders’ time horizons may affect their policy preferences. A draft of this paper will be presented at the ISA International Conference in Hong Kong in June and the APSA Annual Meeting in September.”

[Update] A working paper was presented at the 2017 ISA International Conference in Hong Kong in June and the APSA Annual Meeting in September. More revisions will be done based on the comments.

“This project is co-authored with Dr Mi Jeong Shin at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. In this project we explore two questions: (i) Is there a gender difference in the formation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) preferences?; and (ii) What explains the gender gap and under what conditions is such gender gap wider? We argue that women are more open to FDI than
men because multinational firms generally provide better working conditions and higher wages than domestic firms. In addition, this effect is conditional on a country’s level of economic globalisation, as women in countries that are more open to the world are more likely to observe FDI’s beneficial effect. To test our argument, we use the PEW survey data across 38 countries, and the hypotheses are partially supported.

[Update] A third version of the manuscript has been completed and is currently under review at a journal.”

Dr Pradumna B. RanaAssociate Professor and Coordinator of the International Political Economy Programme

This research analyses the impact of FTAs and Mega-FTAs on Asian countries and focuses on the following research questions:

Despite the preponderance of research evidence that economic impacts of FTAs are relatively small, why are countries so eager to sign FTAs and join mega-FTAs?

What are the benefits and costs of FTAs?

Are the mega-FTAs, such as TPP, TTIP, RCEP, being negotiated complementary or competitive with each other? Are they stepping stones or stumbling blocks to multilateralism? How should Asian countries respond?

Since mega-FTAs are likely to play a leading role in making rules on international trade, how will they impact on WTO’s centrality? Going forward, what are the possible scenarios – will mega-FTAs undermine the WTO?

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

“This paper discusses one of the risks facing East Asia, which is a risk of currency manipulation, and offers policy recommendations to strengthen the exchange-rate management regime in the region. My project aims at answering the questions: “How to boost the regional governance over exchange rate management?”, and “How to develop or enhance institutional mechanisms to lessen the probability of currency manipulation?” Some practical policy options will be explored, including the improvements of certain aspects of the ASEAN+ 3 process (e.g. the functions of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Office). The issue of leadership (e.g. leadership by a single state, co-leadership by a few countries) would also be examined as this element is needed to achieve effective governance.”

Theme: Country and Region Studies / International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

This project is co-authored with Dr Mi Jeong Shin. Recent political issues over bringing back firms in the United States show the economic and political consequences of a significant amount of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in developed democracies. Despite this growing attention to OFDI, little is known about what drives OFDI in those countries. Drawing upon the literature linking domestic institutions and economic performance, we argue that countries with a more centralized wage bargaining system and higher union density are more likely to have a higher level of OFDI, because stronger labour power drives firms to exit the country. We test this argument using both aggregate- and firm-level data in developed democracies.

This paper examines ASEAN’s responses to the changing economic-security nexus. It assesses how the notion of economic security has evolved over time and examines ASEAN’s collective strategies to cope with it in three issue areas – trade, money and finance, and infrastructure development. This paper also identifies the key conditions which lead to successful regional cooperation.

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

“This book analyses the vulnerabilities of Asian economies to external economic and financial shocks and assesses the performance of Asian regional institutions in financial surveillance and cooperation. It also assesses the on-going reforms of the global financial architecture.”

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism

This research focuses on the factors that are leading to the decentralisation of the global economic architecture and how this is complicating the issue of global economic governance. It also focuses on how complementarity between global and regional institutions could be promoted.

Theme: International Political Economy / Regionalism and Multilateralism